Put simply, “indica” strains are those associated with a strong body-high, feelings of sedation and relaxation. For this reason, indicas are often thought of as the “heavier” strains of cannabis, offering stronger highs that impact the whole body. They’re popular among marijuana users as pain relieving and sleep-inducing strains. Indicas are especially popular among medical cannabis patients.

Cannabis has held sacred status in several religions. It has been used in an entheogenic context – a chemical substance used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context[59] - in the Indian subcontinent since the Vedic period dating back to approximately 1500 BCE, but perhaps as far back as 2000 BCE. There are several references in Greek mythology to a powerful drug that eliminated anguish and sorrow. Herodotus wrote about early ceremonial practices by the Scythians, thought to have occurred from the 5th to 2nd century BCE. In modern culture the spiritual use of cannabis has been spread by the disciples of the Rastafari movement who use cannabis as a sacrament and as an aid to meditation. The earliest known reports regarding the sacred status of cannabis in the Indian subcontinent come from the Atharva Veda estimated to have been written sometime around 2000–1400 BCE.[60]

Cannabis was also known to the ancient Assyrians, who discovered its psychoactive properties through the Iranians.[187] Using it in some religious ceremonies, they called it qunubu (meaning "way to produce smoke"), a probable origin of the modern word "cannabis".[188] The Iranians also introduced cannabis to the Scythians, Thracians and Dacians, whose shamans (the kapnobatai—"those who walk on smoke/clouds") burned cannabis flowers to induce trance.[189]
A 2012 review found that the THC content in marijuana had increased worldwide from 1970 to 2009.[150] It is unclear, however, whether the increase in THC content has caused people to consume more THC or if users adjust based on the potency of the cannabis. It is likely that the higher THC content allows people to ingest less tar. At the same time, CBD levels in seized samples have lowered, in part because of the desire to produce higher THC levels and because more illegal growers cultivate indoors using artificial lights. This helps avoid detection but reduces the CBD production of the plant.[151]
The DEA isn’t the only government agency scrutinizing CBD vendors. To fend off the FDA, hemp oil companies contend their wares are not drugs but “dietary supplements.” Despite the suggestive “meds” in the company’s name, HempMedsPx is careful to note on its web site, “Although some of our founders are medical professionals, we cannot make medical claims about the benefits of our products.” Others are not quite so nuanced in their marketing. The internet is flooded with CBD products claiming to treat everything from seizures to arthritis to skin conditions and other maladies.
Side effects of CBD include sleepiness, decreased appetite, diarrhea, fatigue, malaise, weakness, sleeping problems, and others.[3] It does not have intoxicating effects like those caused by THC, and may have an opposing effect on disordered thinking and anxiety produced by THC.[7][10][11] CBD has been found to interact with a variety of different biological targets, including cannabinoid receptors and other neurotransmitter receptors.[7][12] The mechanism of action of CBD in terms of its psychoactive and therapeutic effects is not fully clear.[7]
Plastic composites for automobiles are the second most important component of the hemp industry of the EU. Natural fibers in automobile composites are used primarily in press-molded parts (Fig. 18). There are two widespread technologies. In thermoplastic production, natural fibers are blended with polypropylene fibers and formed into a mat, which is pressed under heat into the desired form. In thermoset production the natural fibers are soaked with binders such as epoxy resin or polyurethane, placed in the desired form, and allowed to harden through polymerization. Hemp has also been used in other types of thermoplastic applications, including injection molding. The characteristics of hemp fibers have proven to be superior for production of molded composites. In European manufacturing of cars, natural fibers are used to reinforce door panels, passenger rear decks, trunk linings, and pillars. In 1999 over 20,000 t of natural fiber were used for these purposes in Europe, including about, 2,000 t of hemp. It has been estimated that 5–10 kg of natural fibers can be used in the molded portions of an average automobile (excluding upholstery). The demand for automobile applications of hemp is expected to increase considerably, depending on the development of new technologies (Karus et al. 2000).
Cannabinoids may also contribute to pain modulation through an anti-inflammatory mechanism; a CB2 effect with cannabinoids acting on mast cell receptors to attenuate the release of inflammatory agents, such as histamine and serotonin, and on keratinocytes to enhance the release of analgesic opioids has been described.[45-47] One study reported that the efficacy of synthetic CB1- and CB2-receptor agonists were comparable with the efficacy of morphine in a murine model of tumor pain.[48]
According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, there were 455,000 emergency room visits associated with cannabis use in 2011. These statistics include visits in which the patient was treated for a condition induced by or related to recent cannabis use. The drug use must be "implicated" in the emergency department visit, but does not need to be the direct cause of the visit. Most of the illicit drug emergency room visits involved multiple drugs.[72] In 129,000 cases, cannabis was the only implicated drug.[73][74]
Cannabidiol can be taken into the body in multiple different ways, including by inhalation of cannabis smoke or vapor, as an aerosol spray into the cheek, and by mouth. It may be supplied as an oil containing only CBD as the active ingredient (no added THC or terpenes), a full-plant CBD-dominant hemp extract oil, capsules, dried cannabis, or as a prescription liquid solution.[1][3]
Finally, the entire marijuana flower structure is coated with resinous crystals called trichomes. Trichomes are translucent, mushroom-like glands that form on the entire flowering structure and even the stems of the marijuana plant. These bulb-shaped glands secrete the rich, aromatic essential oils that give cannabis its smells and flavors. Trichomes also contain cannabinoids.
The vegetable oils have been classified by “iodine value” as drying (120–200), semi-drying (100–120), and non-drying (80–100), which is determined by the degree of saturation of the fatty acids present (Raie et al. 1995). Good coating materials prepared from vegetable oil depend on the nature and number of double bonds present in the fatty acids. Linseed oil, a drying oil, has a very high percentage of linolenic acid. Hempseed oil has been classified as a semi-drying oil, like soybean oil, and is therefore more suited to edible than industrial oil purposes. Nevertheless hemp oil has found applications in the past in paints, varnishes, sealants, lubricants for machinery, and printing inks. However, such industrial end uses are not presently feasible as the oil is considered too expensive (de Guzman 2001). Larger production volumes and lower prices may be possible, in which case hemp oil may find industrial uses similar to those of linseed (flax), soybean, and sunflower oils, which are presently used in paints, inks, solvents, binders, and in polymer plastics. Hemp shows a remarkable range of variation in oil constituents, and selection for oilseed cultivars with high content of valued industrial constituents is in progress.
The first step to finding your correct CBD dosage is getting as much information as you can about the product you’re using. What is the concentration of CBD? Are there third-party lab tests that can confirm that? The CBD industry is still mainly a grassroots therapeutic movement, and as such, largely unregulated. Concentration and purity levels can differ greatly depending on the manufacturing process.

Hemp has been grown for millennia in Asia and the Middle East for its fibre. Commercial production of hemp in the West took off in the eighteenth century, but was grown in the sixteenth century in eastern England.[140] Because of colonial and naval expansion of the era, economies needed large quantities of hemp for rope and oakum. In the early 1940s, world production of hemp fiber ranged from 250 000 to 350 000 metric tonnes, Russia was the biggest producer.[125]

According to Delphic analysis by British researchers in 2007, cannabis has a lower risk factor for dependence compared to both nicotine and alcohol.[97] However, everyday use of cannabis may be correlated with psychological withdrawal symptoms, such as irritability or insomnia,[93] and susceptibility to a panic attack may increase as levels of THC metabolites rise.[98][99] However, cannabis withdrawal symptoms are typically mild and are never life-threatening.[100]

The most pressing need of the hemp industry in North America is for the breeding of more productive oilseed cultivars. At present, mainly European cultivars are available, of which very few are suitable for specialized oilseed production. More importantly, hempseed oil is not competitive, except in the novelty niche market, with the popular food oils. As argued above, to be competitive, hemp should produce approximately 2 t/ha; at present 1 t/ha is considered average to good production. Doubling the productive capacity of a conventional crop would normally be considered impossible, but it needs to be understood just how little hemp has been developed as an oilseed. There may not even be extant land races of the kind of hemp oilseed strains that were once grown in Russia, so that except for a very few very recent oilseed cultivars, there has been virtually no breeding of oilseed hemp. Contrarily, hemp has been selected for fiber to the point that some breeders consider its productivity in this respect has already been maximized. Fiber strains have been selected for low seed production, so that most hemp germplasm has certainly not been selected for oilseed characteristics. By contrast, drug varieties have been selected for very high yield of flowers, and accordingly produce very high yield of seeds. Drug varieties have been observed to produce more than a kilogram of seed per plant, so that a target yield of several tonnes per hectare is conceivable (Watson and Clarke 1997). Of course, the high THC in drug cultivars makes these a difficult source of germplasm. However, wild plants of C. sativa have naturally undergone selection for high seed productivity, and are a particularly important potential source of breeding germplasm.
Most human studies of CBD have been done on people who have seizures, and the FDA recently approved the first CBD-based drug, Epidiolex, for rare forms of epilepsy. Clinical trials for other conditions are promising, but tiny. In one Brazilian study published in 2011 of people with generalized social anxiety disorder, for example, taking a 600-mg dose of CBD (higher than a typical dose from a tincture) lessened discomfort more than a placebo, but only a dozen people were given the pill.
What makes CBD so appealing is that it’s non-intoxicating, so it won’t get you high, though it “is technically psychoactive, because it can influence things like anxiety,” Jikomes said. Although much of the marketing blitz around CBD centers on the fact that you can take it without getting stoned, there isn’t much research looking at the effects of CBD when used in isolation, with a couple of exceptions. One is the use of CBD to treat seizures: CBD is the active ingredient in the only cannabis product that the Food and Drug Administration has signed off on — a drug called Epidiolex, which is approved for treating two rare forms of epilepsy. Animal models and a few human studies suggest that CBD can help with anxiety, but those are the only conditions with much research on CBD in isolation.

A wide variety of hemp clothing, footwear, and food products are now available in North America. Some American manufacturers and distributors have chosen to exploit the association of hemp products with marijuana in their advertising. Such marketing is unfortunate, sending the message that some in the industry are indifferent to the negative image that this generates in the minds of much of the potential consuming public. Admittedly, such advertising works. But marketing based on the healthful and tasteful properties of hemp food products, the durable nature of hemp textiles, and the environmental advantages of the crop has proven to be widely acceptable, and is likely to promote the long term development of hemp industries.

Donald Abrams was a member of the committee that reviewed the evidence that went into producing the report, and he said that the studies they reviewed overwhelmingly used pharmaceutically available preparations that contain THC, including dronabinol, nabilone and the whole-plant extract spray nabiximols, which contains equal parts CBD and THC. It’s impossible to know whether the benefits of cannabis can also be obtained from CBD alone, Abrams said, because CBD is just one of 400 chemicals present in the plant. So far, CBD in isolation has been studied in only a handful of randomized, placebo-controlled trials (considered the gold standard of evidence in medical research), and the evidence remains sparse.

Folks. This article has nothing whatsoever to do wiht legalization of marijuana. Why do you keep commenting on legalizing pot, medical or otherwise? This article is about hemp. TOTALLY different. As an agricultural product it is very adaptable, forgiving and has a multitude of uses. Please stay on topic and help to promote the valuable product of HEMP. South Carolina has made it legal to grow and the rest of the country would benefit from following suit. Again, this has absolutely nothing to do with Pot!!!!!

Hemp is a multi-purpose agricultural crop delivering seeds, fibers and bio-active chemicals for a number of uses and markets. Industrial hemp is defined in federal and Montana statute as Cannabis sativa L. that contains no more than 0.3% delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Industrial hemp is authorized as an alternative agricultural crop by the Montana Legislature, Section 80-18-101 through 80-18-111 of Montana Code Annotated.
Marijuana is the most common illegal drug reported in motor vehicle accidents.[75] A 2012 meta-analysis found that cannabis use was associated with an increased risk of being involved in a motor vehicle crash.[76] A 2016 review also found a statistically significant increase in crash risk associated with marijuana use, but noted that this risk was "of low to medium magnitude."[77] The increase in risk of motor vehicle crash for cannabis use is between 2 and 3 times relative to baseline, whereas that for comparable doses of alcohol is between 6 and 15 times.[78]

Hemp hasn't always been on the wrong side of the authorities. The Puritans brought hemp with them to New England in 1645 and Europeans were growing it even earlier in Chile. George Washington planted hemp as one of several crops at his Mount Vernon estate. However, hemp's popularity waned in America as other plants used for textiles such as cotton and jute became more widely available. The U.S. Navy briefly campaigned for more hemp farming during World War II to supply ropes for ships. But the federal government continued restrictions on hemp after the war.

Hemp oil has never been as popular as other marijuana products. With little to no THC, CBD-rich strains of cannabis don’t deliver the pleasant buzz recreational users seek out in marijuana. In the 1970s, however, scientists found that cannabidiol was effective in reducing seizures. The brain’s endocannabinoid system contains receptors that respond to CBD, producing anticonvulsant effects. Being plant-derived and native to the brain’s own chemistry, CBD is therefore one of the most natural options for seizure treatment available today. Still, not many people took interest in CBD until 2013, when a CNN documentary special, Weed, hosted by the network’s chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, highlighted CBD’s effectiveness in combating seizures. Since then, demand for hemp oil products has exploded.

“Folks at the various state Departments of Agriculture are so excited to bring in hemp – excited to introduce any crop, really, and especially to reintroduce this extraordinarily versatile one,” Beckerman said. “But they’re not experts; they’re learning like anybody else. So getting in there, looking at proposed legislation and rules to make sure [proposals] actually make sense for the crop – on an agronomic level, on a regulatory level – and monitoring changes to that legislation, regulation, or industry, is common sense.” She went on,
An observational study assessed the effectiveness of nabilone in advanced cancer patients who were experiencing pain and other symptoms (anorexia, depression, and anxiety). The researchers reported that patients who used nabilone experienced improved management of pain, nausea, anxiety, and distress when compared with untreated patients. Nabilone was also associated with a decreased use of opioids, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, tricyclic antidepressants, gabapentin, dexamethasone, metoclopramide, and ondansetron.[56]
Throughout his lifetime, George Washington cultivated hemp at Mount Vernon for industrial uses. The fibers from hemp held excellent properties for making rope and sail canvas. In addition, hemp fibers could be spun into thread for clothing or, as indicated in Mount Vernon records, used in repairing the large seine nets Washington used in his fishing operation along the Potomac.
Short-term use increases both minor and major adverse effects.[103] Common side effects include dizziness, feeling tired, vomiting, and hallucinations.[103] Long-term effects of cannabis are not clear.[105] Concerns including memory and cognition problems, risk of addiction, schizophrenia in young people, and the risk of children taking it by accident.[102]
George Washington also imported the Indian Hemp plant from Asia, which was used for fiber and, by some growers, for intoxicating resin production. In a letter to William Pearce who managed the plants for him Washington says, "What was done with the Indian Hemp plant from last summer? It ought, all of it, to be sown again; that not only a stock of seed sufficient for my own purposes might have been raised, but to have disseminated seed to others; as it is more valuable than common hemp."[citation needed]

^ Jump up to: a b Schreiner AM, Dunn ME (October 2012). "Residual effects of cannabis use on neurocognitive performance after prolonged abstinence: a meta-analysis". Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology. 20 (5): 420–429. doi:10.1037/a0029117. PMID 22731735. Therefore, results indicate evidence for small neurocognitive effects that persist after the period of acute intoxication...As hypothesized, the meta-analysis conducted on studies eval- uating users after at least 25 days of abstention found no residual effects on cognitive performance...These results fail to support the idea that heavy cannabis use may result in long-term, persistent effects on neuropsychological functioning.

Hemp can be used as a "mop crop" to clear impurities out of wastewater, such as sewage effluent, excessive phosphorus from chicken litter, or other unwanted substances or chemicals. Additionally, hemp is being used to clean contaminants at the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site, by way of a process which is known as phytoremediation—the process of clearing radioisotopes and a variety of other toxins from the soil, water, and air.[44]